Fridge Magnets
by cootiegirl
Summary: Soul is good at using those three little words, but has trouble saying them out loud.


A/N: I found a prompt floating around Tumblr that said something like: "Partner A can't seem to find the right words to tell Partner B they love them so they spell it out in different ways, but never leave it long enough for Partner B to find it." I'm sorry that I can't remember the exact wording, but I thought it was really cute.

* * *

_The Magnets_

* * *

There's a bag of them on the counter when Maka and Soul get home. A present from Spirit, a small (and very late) housewarming gift, according to Blair, which is more than strange since they've been living in the same place for years now. He's just trying to be a good dad. He tries. Maka at least gives him that.

They are fridge magnets, in all different colors, and the first thing Maka does is stick four letters on the fridge, "_M_", "_A_", "_K_", "_A_". Just to make sure they can do their job.

The next day, Soul spells the word "_milk_". Maka adds "_waffles_". Soul puts "_popsicles_" and "_toothpaste_" on the list. Grocery shopping gets a lot easier.

Meister leaves Weapon a note when he goes on a solo mission and won't be back until late that night: "_good luck_". She surprises him when he gets home with freshly cooked dinner, and when he finishes eating, fusses over his cuts and scrapes, making him sit down in a chair like a little boy that got beat up on the playground. His left eye is starting to blacken and his lip is split, but he looks content when she finishes administering Neosporin and gauze. He leaves "_thank you_" on the fridge.

Blair notices the trend and sees fit to add fish to the shopping list. _Every time._

And every time they pretend not to see it. Whenever she brings home fish, she either burns it accidentally or undercooks it, and neither is much better than the other.

One night, Maka falls asleep on the couch. Soul puts a blanket over her. Not because he wants to be romantic or anything. He knows this is a very cliche thing to do, but there's a quilt not even three feet away from her and she is as still as a stone, breathing slow and even, so if she wakes up shivering and cold he will have to deal with the guilt as she bundles up in his old sweaters that she likes to wear for no particular reason. Sometimes his shirts go missing and he'll find them in her room too. He doesn't say anything.

Before he turns off the light and goes to bed he stops by the fridge and assembles the words. He pauses, looks over at her, and leaves the room.

In the morning, she's still in dreamland when he pads through the kitchen to check on her. In half an hour… twenty nine minutes... no, _twenty eight_ minutes, she will get up and ask him why he didn't just tell her to go to her bedroom because _damn it, Soul, her neck hurts now._

He'll shrug and make her coffee._ Sorry. Didn't wanna get bonked in the head for it._ He won't mention how she looked with circles under her eyes dark enough to start pouring rain, or how the t-shirt she was wearing had been pulled up to show a little of her tummy.

But right now she's asleep and the eight letters are still on the fridge. A little crooked, but still there. And he thinks for a minute, what would happen if he just left them? But his inner voice tells him _no, that's a bad idea_. So they get rearranged. Maka wakes up to see "orange juice". Soul is making coffee.

* * *

_The Mirror_

* * *

It's after a battle with another pre-kishin, and both of them are shaky and exhausted. Soul slips into the shower before Maka can mutter "bathroom hog" although it sounds halfhearted since she can't bring herself to care at all. She's just glad they didn't get hurt this time.

Soul turns the water on as hot as it can go and stands there for a good five minutes before realizing his back is going to be red and raw from the scalding temperature. It feels good. The fight was outside in heavy, ice-cold rain.

Maka's teeth were chattering and her coat was splattered with mud, as well as her legs and face. She looked like a swamp monster from Hell, especially with that fiery glare of determination that made their enemies gulp. Her hands tightened around him and got ready to swing as the pre-kishin, a monstrous looking thing with bulging eyes and needle-like teeth that happened to be able to inject poison into its victims if it got a good enough bite in, circled her, growling menacingly.

It was faster than she expected, and quick reflexes were the only thing that kept Maka from getting eaten alive. Soul yelled at her to move or she'd get a shoulder full of venom, but she ignored him and just barely avoided getting grazed by its claws. She didn't have time to reply to her weapon's metallic-sounding snarls of "_you idiot, watch out_!" because it knocked her breathless to the ground. It was almost too late, but then she gave a delayed rasp of _"soul resonance_" and then hit it as hard as she could. It howled and screamed like a wild animal, Soul's blade easily cutting it like a hot knife through butter. Its shadow twisted and churned and then was no more, leaving a hovering ball of light suspended in the air.

Maka is the most stupid, reckless, stubborn person Soul's ever met, but for that he owes her so much. It's her decisions that save them both when it comes down to it, even if he helps her make them. Everything she does is to protect him, and half of him feels like a helpless child, and the other half feels very, very loved. He does all he can to defend his meister, and she does the same in return. It's a good dynamic. But he relies on her a little too much sometimes, and she just lifts them both up as much as she can with no questions asked.

He writes the words with a wet finger on the steam-covered mirror.

Maka knocks on the door, plaintively calling out his name. She's too tired to shout.

He wipes the mirror quickly with a towel and walks out of the bathroom, mumbling an apology.

She gives him a smile (although it might be a grimace since her face is so dirty her facial features seem to be warped in strange ways). "No problem."

He tells her to get some sleep.

* * *

_The Soup_

* * *

Canned soup is not a common meal in the Evans/Albarn household.

They take turns cooking real food. Eggs for breakfast. Sandwiches, if they don't plan to eat at the academy's cafeteria. Dinner could be anything, really. Anything but _canned soup_.

But it can't be helped when they forget to go shopping.

"It was your turn," Soul says immediately.

Maka scowls as she looks into the pantry. "No, it wasn't."

"It doesn't matter," he says hastily, because he just remembered that it had been, in fact, his turn. "I'll be fine with cereal."

He doesn't want to eat cereal for dinner. But that's a better alternative than Maka complaining at him until he gets up and goes to the store.

She digs around for a second, then comes up with a giant can labeled "alphabet soup".

Soul gives her a look that says "_do I look five to you_?" and she narrows her eyes, replying with a silent "_yes_."

It's amazing how much they can say without actually talking.

Maka sets down the two bowls and they unhappily start their sad excuse for a dinner.

Soggy green beans (who puts green beans in alphabet soup, isn't this supposed to be for kids?), watery broth that tastes like the can in came in, and the letters themselves are twice the size they should be from soaking up as much of the stock as they can hold. In overall, this is disgusting.

Luckily, the phone rings and Maka gets up to answer it.

At her loud exclamation of "oh, Shinigami-sama!", he takes this opportunity to dump his bowl into the sink, but before he has a chance to do it, his meister glances over with a look of sheer death. He puts it back on the table.

"No, of course this is a good time to talk! What were you saying about a mission for Soul and I?" Maka keeps eye contact with him and draws a line across her neck with her finger. She lifts an eyebrow ("_get the picture_?") and retreats to a different room so she can talk without getting distracted by her weapon's antics.

Soul knows she'll be talking for a while, and he really does not want to eat this stupid soup. She'll only yell at him a little if he dumps it. It's not like she's going to scrape it all up and force-feed it to him. He tries not to think about the possibility of that happening.

Soul can hear Maka's muffled voice through the wall, and it sounds worried. She's rarely worried about missions, even if they come straight from Shinigami-sama. He hopes she doesn't make it sound like they're unable to do whatever it is, because as bad and boastful as it sounds, Maka and Soul are one of the most capable pairs at Shibusen. Lord Death knows that, of course, so even if she tries to underestimate their abilities, he'll stay firm.

She's quiet for a while, listening. She says "okay" a lot of times. Soul can almost see her pacing and biting her nails and tries to grasp her soul wavelength just to lend some steadiness.

She does too much for them, carries too much weight. He feels bad for whining about the soup and stirs it with his spoon, watching the noodles spin around in circles. The words are forming, the letters arranging themselves before he realizes what he's doing. When he's done, Maka comes into the room, and he wonders if she'll peek into his bowl. She doesn't, but instead looks at her own bowl distastefully.

"Let's get burgers."

Soul grins. "Now we're talkin'."

She laughs and pours her bowl down the drain. "Alphabet soup is gross."

Soul stirs up the letters.

Maybe he could _tell_ her instead.


End file.
